Environmental deprivation impairs sensorimotor development in mice
Description
216 C57Bl/6 mice were weaned and housed for 15, 30, or 60 days in physically and socially enriched environments with 3 mice per cage, physically impoverished but socially enriched environments with 3 mice per cage, or physically impoverished socially isolated environments with 1 mouse per cage. After housing in these environments, the mice were tested in the vermicelli handling test (VHT) to measure forepaw dexterity. Outcome measures were total pasta handling duration (sec), total pasta consumption (mg) per sec of pasta handling, pasta drops per sec of pasta handling, total duration of twirling the pasta (sec) per sec of pasta handling. 30 mice were excluded from all analyses because they did not touch the pasta at all during the 10 min VHT test. Those mice are noted in red font with strikethrough. All mice that touched the pasta were included in the analyses, totalling 186 mice. Abbreviations used are: EE/SE = environmental enrichment / social enrichment EI/SE = environmental impoverishment / social enrichment EI/SI = environmental impoverishment / social impoverishment
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Institutions
- University of FloridaFlorida, Gainesville